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1511 South 1500 East Salt Lake City, UT 84105 InkslingerSpring Issue 2016 801-484-9100

TKE Is the Place to Hang!

The bookshop will certainly be the place to ‘hang’ this spring and summer with an amazing lineup of authors from fiction to non- fiction, memoir to mystery—presenting, in many cases, their best ever. Take a peek!

Tuesday, April 5, 7 p.m. Augusten Burroughs Lust & Wonder: A Tuesday, June 7, 7 p.m. Terry Tempest Williams The Hour of Land: Memoir A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (offsite, call Wednesday, April 6, 7 p.m. Helen Macdonald H Is for Hawk store for details) Monday, April 18, 7 p.m. Erik Larson Dead Wake: The Last Cross- Wednesday, June 8, 7 p.m. Richard Russo Everybody’s Fool ing of the Lusitania (off-site, call store for details) Friday, June 10, 7 p.m. Alan Furst A Hero in France Wednesday, April 20, 7 p.m. Douglas Brinkley Rightful Heritage: Friday, June 17, 7 p.m. End of Watch (off-site, call Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America store for details) Tuesday, May 17, 7 p.m. Bill Clegg Did You Ever Have a Family But Wait, There’s More! Please Turn the Page.

1 The Rest of the Spring Calendar at TKE

Local Author Showcase!

Wednesday, March 30, 7 p.m. James Anderson returns with his Wednesday, April 27, 7 p.m. Shawn Vestal will read from and sign The Never-Open Desert Diner. his coming-of-age novel, Daredevils. Thursday, March 31, 7 p.m. Poet Lisa Bickmore will join us with her Saturday, April 30, ALL DAY! Day with fun new , Flicker. for all ages. Friday, April 1, 7 p.m. Relationship expert Wendy Newman dishes Saturday, May 7, 2 p.m. Bring your four-legged friend for a lively up advice with 121 First Dates. event with Guinnevere Shuster and her new , Shelter Dogs in a Thursday, April 7, 7 p.m. Historian John Turner will be with us for a Photo Booth. discussion of The Mormon Jesus. Saturday, May 14, 2 p.m. Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of the Tuesday, April 12, 7 p.m. Join us for our quarterly Local Author Humane Society of the United States, will join us to present his new Showcase. book, The Humane Economy: How Innovators and Enlightened Consumers Are Transforming the Lives of Animals. Wednesday, April 13, 7 p.m. Dr. Samuel Brown will present his latest work, Through the Valley of Shadows: Living Wills, Intensive Care, Tuesday, May 24, 6:30 p.m. Beloved artist Susan Branch will discuss and Making Medicine Human. and sign her memoir, Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams. Tuesday, April 19, 7 p.m. Local favorite Greg Zeigler returns to Salt Thursday, May 26, 7 p.m. Former State Department official Kael Lake to read from and sign Some Say Fire. Weston will read from and sign his new book, The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan. 2 Indie Bookstore Day Returns!

Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn We’re gearing up for Indie Bookstore Day (IBD) 2016,leB owitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndonyou’re sAnderson invited! Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin and we want all of you to join the fun! For one day, Satcurious- GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo urday, April 30th, we’ll have food , giveaways and AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann P400Atchett Bookstores. Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil unique items for sale—only on that day and only in theGA imAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest12 willi exclusiveAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett store. In addition to all-day activities, we’ll have a speAnthony- BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnBooksA Quindlen & dA artvid mitchell pieces. terry tem Pest williAms cial Duck & Goose storytime at 11 a.m. and our SecondBrA ndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe Annual Author Trivia Showdown at 2 p.m. on the patio.neil GAimAn FrAn leBoowitzne tA dayd hills only.KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann Who will win this year? Will be the Holyhead HarpiesPAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte JoindicAmillo Ann theA Quindlen party! dAvid mitchell terry temPest led by Sara B. Larson? Or the Literati, coached by Annwilli Ams BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Cannon and Jennifer Adams? Quindlen dAvid mitchellit’s t erryhAPP temeninPestG w here!illiAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn IBD collectible items this year include an EXCLUSIVE,leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin limited Neil Gaiman coloring book with art byc urious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon Chris Riddell, a Bad Citizen stencil by Fran Lebowitz sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil with the phrase, “Think before you speak. Read beforeG Ayouim An FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett think.” We’ll also have tea towels with quotes from AnnaAnthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms Quindlen and David Mitchell, a limited number of BranBrAndon- sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen don Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive: A Pocket CompandA- vid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann ion to The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance—alongPAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest with, for one lucky person, a special excerpt from Terrywilli Ams BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Tempest Williams’ new book Hour of Land. Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn For the younger set we’ll have exclusive SIGNED & leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndonindependent sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin NUMBERED editions of Raymie Nightingale by Katec urious GeorGe neil GbookstoreAimAn FrAn leBowitz day tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon Dicamillo with a special note from Kate; a fun Draw Me!sA nderson Ann PAtchett saturdayAnthony Bourd A in curious GeorGe neil book with instructions from Mo Willems, Raina TelgeG-AimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest awprililliAms 30, BrAndon 2016 sAnderson Ann PAtchett meier, Stephen Pastis, and more—and a bookstore-cats’Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms clutch, MEOW! BrAndon sAndersonwww.indiebookstoreday.com Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest williAms BrAndon sAnderson Ann PAtchett Anthony BourdAin curious GeorGe neil GAimAn FrAn leBowitz tAd hills KAte dicAmillo AnnA Quindlen dAvid mitchell terry temPest Indie Bookstore 2016 Collectibles!Day

3 Spring Is Jampacked with Events for Kids and Teens!

Grab your calendars and see which authors fit into your schedule!

Saturday, April 2, 12:30 p.m. Jennifer Adams brings her new BabyLit Wednesday, April 13, 7 p.m. Lisa McMann joins us with her middle book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to the children’s room. grade book, Island of Dragons, the conclusion of The Un- Saturday, April 2, 4 p.m. The fun continues with Janet Sumner John- wanteds series. son and The Last Great Adventure of the PB & J Society. Thursday, April 21, 7 p.m. YA author Frank Beddor will present Friday, April 8, 7 p.m. Teen favorite Cinda Williams Chima will read Hatter Madigan: Ghost in the Hatbox. from and sign Flamecaster, the first in her newShattered Realms Tuesday, April 26, 7 p.m. The talented Julie Berry will read from and series. sign The Passion of Dolssa. Friday, April 8, 7 p.m. Newbery winner Kwame Alexander will be at Thursday, April 28, 6 p.m. Sarah Mlynowski joins us for the next the Viridian Event Center to read from and sign his new YA novel, installment in her Whatever Afterseries. Shannon Hale will be a Booked. special guest for this evening. Tuesday, April 12, 7 p.m. Ridley Pearson and his Kingdom Keepers Friday, April 29, 7 p.m. Siobhan Vivian will be with us to read from visit us with Legacy of Secrets. and sign her teen novel, The Last Boy and Girl in the World.

4 More Events for Kids and Teens!

Monday, May 2, 7 p.m. The Raven Cycle comes to a thundering con- Tuesday, May 10, 7 p.m. Matthew Kirby returns with Island of the clusion when Maggie Stievfater joins us for The Raven King. Sun, the second in the Dark Gravity Sequence. Thursday, May 5, 7 p.m.Middle grade author Kenneth Oppel will be Wednesday, May 11, 3 p.m. The Scholastic Summer Road at the store to read from and sign, The Nest. Trip RV rolls into Salt Lake City! (see below) Friday, May 6, 6 p.m. The adventures continue with Liesl Shurtliff Saturday, May 14, 11 a.m. Fun favorites Elephant and Piggie join us and Red: The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood. for story time with Rob!

Summer Reading (and Writing!) by Margaret Brennan Neville Did you know that there is over 100 years’ worth of research that shows students routinely score worse on standardized tests at the end of summer, than they did at the beginning? And everyone will know the answer to the next question. What is the one activity that can prevent that slide? Reading of course! At TKE we think reading can fix or prevent a whole slew of problems. Sign your kids up for TKE’s Summer Reading and Writ- ing programs. The groups are led by highly qualified, certified, and AMAZING teachers, with support from our enthusiastic staff. The classes will meet on Wednesdays, June 15, 22 and 29 and July 6 and 13 and will run for 50 minutes. Book groups for PreK/Kindergarten, First/Second, and Third/Fourth, will start at 6 p.m. Fifth/Sixth, Sev- enth & Up, and Writing for Third/Fourth at 7 p.m., and Writing for Fifth & Up will begin at 8 p.m. Cost is $50 per child per class, and must be paid when you sign up—on or after April 1, 2016. Class size is limited, so register soon. You can do so online, in the store, or by phone. Book purchase is not necessary, but we do discount books bought at TKE specifically for book groups. Teachers and reading lists will be posted on our website by May 1, 2016.

5 FICTION

The Ancient Minstrel,Jim Harrison sessed of regal charm and an implacable Jim Harrison, that rough and ready yet will and before long by her nephews—one supremely literary writer who wove the a steadfast medical student, the other physical world through his poetry, his an emotionally unruly poet. Beneath its , his wondrous novellas and stories, bucolic surface, the smug town of Rye, died last week. He’ll be sorely missed. which has co-existed uneasily with the Considered together, the three novellas resident gypsies, is even more upended by of his last book, The Ancient Minstrel, the new flood of refugees fleeing from the seem oddly linked, a coda of sorts, Nazi advance on Europe. Suddenly the although at first glance they bare scant building constellation of love and rejec- similarity to one another. The title tale is tion, social gerrymandering and financial a self-mocking account of an aging writer, skullduggery seems insignificant, over- separated from his wife but only by the shadowed by the gathering forces of war. distance of the yard since he inhabits the writer’s studio, his wife the But the personal is never insignificant in house they once shared. As always sex is on his mind, along with old Simonson’s world and her latest, deliciously readable, satiric, roman- nightmares, poetry, booze, dogs, dinners, rivers, hard work, pigs—the tic and insightful, is as close to Jane Austen in terms of wit, affection, lifelong preoccupations and passions that have enriched and bedev- sharp insight and biting, savvy realism as any writer I can think of. iled his years. If there’s a hero in this tale, it’s the author’s wife, as the – Betsy Burton, , $28 last line of the epilogue bears out with self-irony. The second novella, Tuesday Nights in 1980, Molly Prentiss the funny, lovely “Eggs,” features one of the most clear-eyed, likable Argentina, mid-70s. An orphaned brother creations in Harrison’s fiction, a woman who grew up with alcohol- and sister stranded together in a huge ics and knows what she now wants—chickens, a baby, the farm-life house are so close they know each other’s denied her mother—and what she doesn’t want. Men. Not that she thoughts. Until she marries, and Raul spurns them; she just wants her own life. The disturbing “The Case flees to New York, pursuing art, ignoring of the Howling Buddhas” carries the addictions from both previous his past and the dangers descending on tales to the loathsome extreme of pedophilia. Somehow the second his native land, unaware that his sister is and third tales seem to bookend the first, maybe because they detail with child. He lives the fabled bohemian the best and worst impulses of the character in “The Ancient Min- life of NY in the 70s, meeting James strel.” Whether meant as a coda or not, this is signature Harrison, along the way, an art critic informed and gutsy, funny, dead-honest, as full of contrary currents and of beauty inspired by Synesthesia—which enables as the rivers he so loved to write about. – Betsy Burton, Grove Press, him to see the colors underlying, suf- $25 fusing, the paintings he examines, the painters who paint them. Noonday, Pat Barker Prentiss is a miracle of a writer: The New York art scene is rendered From the Booker Prize-winning author so vibrantly, the characters portrayed so vividly, the tangle of their of the acclaimed Regeneration trilogy relationships evoked with such a mix of elation and pain that the comes a beautifully written story of reader is torn between racing from page to page and stopping to re- two men and two women struggling to read this iridescent, garish paragraph, that shimmering sentence. But survive during the London blitz of 1940. the real miracle is that this is a debut novel. May such wonders never Once fellow students at the School cease—at least in the world of books. – Betsy Burton, Gallery/Scout of Fine Art before the First World War, Press, $26 Eleanor and Paul Tarrant and Kit Neville Dodgers, Bill Beverly live their lives hourly, Eleanor and Kit as Teen gang members on watch at a drug ambulance drivers and Paul, a commis- house in East L.A. fail to give warning of sioned artist. Eleanor and Paul’s marriage a raid and their fates hang in the balance is in disarray, and Kit, having proposed in this literary tour-de-force, an almost to Eleanor himself decades before, waits scary evocation of the teen psyche, not to his opportunity. Bertha Mason, a hugely obese medium whose spirit mention the psychology of gang violence, guides haunt her and those she provides séances for, affects Paul in gang camaraderie and loyalty. Sent on a ways he could never have imagined. These characters draw the reader mission of death after the debacle at the into the nightly horrors, the unbelievable courage of volunteers and drug house, 15-year-old East, his younger the cruel devastation of London. A spectacular read. – Sue Fleming, brother and two other boy-soldiers, all Doubleday, $27.95 frightening, frenetic, yet at the same time The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson achingly, convincingly human, terrify In the idyllic summer leading up WWII, Beatrice, in straitened us and break our hearts. Especially the ever-serious, hypervigilant circumstances after the death of her father, applies for a teaching job East. Their nightmarish trip along the netherworld of the freeway to in Rye, East Sussex. She is championed by a local Grande Dame pos- Wisconsin, the choices they make along the road, the actions they 6 FICTION take, and finally, East alone, unmoored, create a level of empathy that a Cold War love affair. By 1983, an evangelical missionary discovers opens our eyes and our hearts. A remarkable first novel by another that the Good News may not be good news at all to the Mayan refu- hugely talented new author. – Betsy Burton, Crown, $26 gees she hopes to save. And in 1999, the mother of an adopted Mayan In the Land of Armadillos: Stories, Helen daughter embarks on a Roots Tour only to find that the history she Maryles Shankman and Elizabeth Wiley seeks is not safely in the past. The country’s rich and distinct culture, a fusion of Spanish and Indigenous influences, as well as its unique Yet another amazing first is this collection ecosystems and rare biological species, are the backdrop for the book. of connected short stories (think The Tsar – Sue Fleming, Viking, $27.95 of Love and Techno), each set in Wlo- dawa, a small town in Eastern Poland, The High Mountains of Portugal, during WWII. The common thread is a Yann Martel Jewish family whose father is an artisan Suspend belief and then prepare patiently with leather and Willy Reinhart, the com- for a physical and metaphorical journey mandant of the local labor camp. Their through the past century. The story begins personal tales deal with the survival of in 1904 and takes us on three different yet body and soul, of love and faith, and are interconnected journeys of men in the overlain with mythology and folklore— throes of grief: Tomas who, having lost some of which lingers in the local culture today. The magical real- wife and son to diphtheria and knowing ism blended with what we know about the horrors of WWII make that nothing in his future can compensate for stories at once brutal and tender. A powerful addition to WWII for his loss, goes backward, retracing the . I loved it! – Margaret Brennon Neville, Simon & Schuster, steps of Father Ulisses, a monk whose $25 bizarre quest for a relic hidden in a tiny Innocents and Others, Dana Spiotta village had taken on both evolution and belief in God; a pathologist suffering from loss and obsessed with Agatha Christie, who is drawn Meadow’s ambitions as a documentary into the quest of Tomas 35 years when asked to perform an filmmaker involve work on the outer autopsy; and, 50 years after that, a Canadian Senator also grieving for fringes of her art. Her best friend a lost wife who rescues a chimpanzee, returns to his familial home- doesn’t have the money or the vaulting land in the high mountains of Portugal and brings to a conclusion ambition of Meadow, but she too wants to the century old quest of Tomas. Told with humor, pathos, mysticism, create films that, albeit entertaining, show and an emphasis on the theme of our need for home, this is a tender the world from uncommon perspectives. exploration not just of great love and great loss, but of faith, of man’s Then there’s Jelly, in love with a blind desire to make sense of it. “[He] realized that this matter of faith was phone phreak and ultimately with the either radically to be taken seriously or radically not to be taken seri- safety of her own phone voice out there in ously.” All in all a very addictive—and thought-provoking—read. the ether, dissociated from her body. And – Jan Sloan and Anne Stewart Mark, Spiegel and Grau, $27 Sarah, tragically involved in a far darker form of filmmaking. As Spiotta skillfully splices together their tales, Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift cutting and patching scenes as artfully as any filmmaker, we see the It is Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day in arc of all four lives, witness airy wisps of dream solidifying into ines- England) in 1924; the war is truly over capable reality. Spiotta casts a deadly eye on life’s absurdities and on and families are sadly smaller, celebra- the blinkered vision of obsession, a more kindly one on the possibili- tions quieter. In Swift’s brief but moving ties for redemption in this discerning evocation of the reality of being new novel, we spend the day with Jane, young and female. One question burns its way through this novel: a maid. It is the last time she will be with What price the freedom to create? – Betsy Burton, Scribner, $25 Paul, her “Thoroughbred” lover, because Hard Red Spring, Kelly Kerney he is on the verge of marriage to another woman. The world is changing. Jane is Guatemala takes center stage in this going to leave service, and become some- novel with its many coups, civil wars and thing else, become more herself. And her genocide. Never has the U.S. hand in the new life hinges on this one day, beauti- terrible crimes and horrors that occurred ful, memorable, dark. Swift is a beautiful during the 20th century been so factu- writer, crafting sentences that you want ally exposed. Four American women are to read over and over again. – Margaret Brennan Neville, Random, linked across those years beginning in $22.95 1902 with the disappearance of a little girl who watches her family’s life destroyed by Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly corrupt officials and inscrutable natives. In September, 1939, while Europe waits for the Germans to invade In 1954 the wife of an American ambas- and America avoids facing Hitler’s power, three women’s lives link: in sador becomes trapped in the intrigue of New York Caroline Ferriday coordinates events for the French con-

7 FICTION POETRY sulate; in Poland Kasia faces the invaders Oliver, chances are you’ll find much to admire in this collection. and slowly becomes part of the Resistance – Kenneth Loosli, Atlantic Monthly Press, $22 Editor’s note: Helen until she is captured, sent to Ravensbruck, MacDonald will be at TKE on Wednesday, April 6, 7p.m. and is among those girls used in medical Flight, Katharine Coles experimentation, “lab rabbits;” in Ger- many Herta, a young surgeon, develops This sixth collection of poetry by Coles a medical career as a Nazi doctor per- also pays close attention to the natural forming experiments—just as the other world, like all her work, twining it with doctors do—even as she sympathizes with science or math or art or philosophy—or various prisoners. Ferriday takes up the with love, whether of man, finch, flower, cause of the “rabbits” as the war comes to dog, Hagia Sophia—or a pancake batfish. an end, and Kasia searches for and finds Playful, inventive, haunting, Coles winds Herta in order to confront the woman her way through the world and all it who damaged her and killed her friends contains, reflecting, refracting, shedding and family. Under ordinary circumstances, the New York socialite, light, joy, sorrow. “Fault Line” is a perfect the Polish girl and the German doctor would never have known of love poem, “Song at the Museum of Musi- one another, but war brings strangers together. The canvas of the cal Instruments” perfectly playful in its book is large but the stories are personal, based on the actual life of macabre way, “At Pompeii” the ideal intersection of past and perfect Caroline, with whom Martha Hall Kelly is obsessed—along with the present…and so her poems spool out, spanning time and space, inte- people whose lives were damaged by the cruelty of war. – Wendy riority and the wide world, delighting, saddening, inspiring. Foster Leigh, Ballantine Books, $26 – Betsy Burton, Red Hen Press, $17.95 POETRY NONFICTION

Wait Till I’m Dead: Uncollected Poems, Half-Earth, Our Planet’s Fight for Life, Allen Ginsberg Edward O. Wilson Given that the most recent edition of This, the third in Wilson’s trilogy be- Ginsberg’s Collected Poems is more than gun with The Social Conquest of Earth 1200 pages long, the appearance of these and The Meaning of Human Existence, uncollected poems nearly 20 years after describes in no uncertain terms the his death may come as something as a breadth and rapidity of the disappear- surprise. Wait Till I’m Dead is a collection ance of species from air, land, and sea. of what one might call ephemeral work — Factors include global warming, pollu- poems that Ginsberg dashed off in letters tion, deforestation and over-fishing, all or submitted to long forgotten literary human-caused. Wilson posits that there journals or poems he himself simply for- are many who feel Earth is now human- got about along the way — so perhaps the owned, and that all resources in, above, bigger surprise is that these aren’t throwaways. In fact, there are many or beneath should be considered for human benefit, for business, and pieces in this collection that deserve to be considered significant en- we should just get on with it. He instead counters that if “biodiver- tries in Ginsberg’s impressive oeuvre. Ginsberg’s longtime editor Bill sity is to be returned to the baseline level of extinction that existed Morgan has made a fine selection that demonstrates the poet’s char- before the spread of humanity, and thus saved for future generations, acteristic fusion of the personal and the sexual, the religious and the the conservation effort must be raised to a new level.” He recom- political, a selection that serves as a fitting reintroduction to a major mends that the area of inviolable natural reserves (parks, existing and American poet about whom we thought we already knew everything. new reserves) equal half the Earth or more. Beautiful 18th and 19th –Kenneth Loosli, Grove Press, $22 century illustrations from the Botanical of the Herbarium at Harvard University are featured throughout. Accessible, humorous at Shaler’s Fish, Helen Macdonald times, despondent at others, this is a big shout-out for conservation This reissue of Macdonald’s early poetry biologists and all who are serious about taking care of this planet. (originally published in 2001) shows that – Sue Fleming, Atria, $26 she was a keen observer of birds well Far & Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change: Seven Conti- before the success of H Is for Hawk. In nents, Twenty-five Years, Andrew Solomon these poems, she turns a close eye to the natural world, favoring long lines like Journalist, art critic, searcher, researcher, psychologist, inveterate Jorie Graham and unrhymed couplets like traveler, Solomon, in Far & Away, shows himself to be possessed Mark Doty. Like a true Romantic (with of an ability to be at once far-reaching and intensely personal in his a capital R), she uses poetry as a sort of perceptions and observations. The book’s first section is a brilliant two-way glass between the external and essay on the initial stirring of his lifelong need for travel—the yen interior worlds. If you’re a fan of Mary for safe harbor once he’d learned history’s hard lessons concerning 8 NONFICTION the Holocaust—and in equal measure the American Character: A History of the historical, cultural and geographic differ- Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty ences that make change as unpredictable and the Common Good, Colin Woodard as it is inevitable, as personal as politi- Colin Woodard builds on the thesis of cal. And so we track Solomon’s footsteps his previous book, American Nations, across the globe and over time, visiting to show how the 11 different “nations” and revisiting Russia and China, parts of within the United States fall along the Africa, Asian islands, and disparate parts spectrum of individualism versus collec- of the Americas, witnessing change as tivism. Looking at our country through political upheaval, as economic revolu- this lens of political structures provides tion, as artistic rebellion masked as irony. a unique insight not only into historical Whether through the mediums of art, events but also into current affairs. It may genocide, depression, climate or ritual, he seem that some cultural-political fault gets to the roots of change across cultures. lines are too great to overcome, but Woodard offers his own ideas As empathetic as he is knowledgeable, his proclivity for the overview about how to strike a balance to avoid what he calls “the two paths to ever tempered by the personal, he is one of the most extraordinary tyranny” (extreme individualism and extreme collectivism). This is thinkers of our time. – Betsy Burton, Scribner, $29 political science at its best—nuanced, well-researched, and pragmati- The Immortal Irishman, Timothy Egan cally hopeful. Moreover, appearing during such a fraught election Those of you who have read Egan’s previ- year makes American Character a timely book, one which every ous work on topics such as the Dust Bowl voter and candidate would be better off for having read. or epic forest fires will find this book to be – Kenneth Loosli, Viking, $29 a gem, still written in Egan’s easy narra- The Last Goodnight, Howard Blum tive style. Being of Irish ancestry myself, I Betty Pack’s role as a highly successful spy thought I knew a lot about the history of for both Britain’s MI6 and America’s OSS Ireland, especially her sorrowful relation- unfolds, albeit in Blum’s straightforward ship with England, but Egan gives us a style, like a of World War II 50-page synopsis of the Irish/English mystery noir. Pack was beautiful, charm- relationship which in itself makes reading ing, and used her seductive skills on the book worthwhile. Then he details diplomats and military attachés across the the famine and the exodus of the Irish, globe in exchange for ciphers and secrets, mainly to the U.S. and Canada, which leads into the American Civil cracking embassy safes to steal codes War and the settling of the American West—with a snippet about Salt and obtaining the Polish notebooks that Lake City. All of this is told through the life of Thomas Meagher, an proved key to Alan Turing’s success with almost Forrest Gump type (but real-life) character who seemed to be Operation Ultra. Pack’s information has everywhere as history was being written. Loved it! – Patrick Fleming, been kept classified for decades. Through access to recently unclassi- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30 fied files, Blum discovered the truth about this attractive blonde from Lust & Wonder: A Memoir, Minnesota code-named Cynthia. This historic profile will soon find Augusten Burroughs its way to personal shelves next to Erik Larson and Ben Macintyre. At first, this book reads like a conversa- – Sue Fleming, , $28.99 tion between a bunch of gay guys gossip- The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, ing over cocktails—funny, sarcastic, self- Joshua Hammer deprecating and painfully honest. But as Over the last 30 years, rare book col- Burroughs takes us on a journey through lector Abdel Kader Haidara has been his failed relationships and shares his collecting antique books from across the loopy (but very real and personal) ratio- Sahara, seeking to preserve Timbuktu’s nal for why he makes the same mistakes long-standing traditions of scholarship. over and over, it becomes just as personal, When religious extremists started moving just as real for the reader. I swear, I think through Africa, Haidara found himself I hear the same voices in my head that he an unlikely protector of an entire nation’s hears in his. This is the first of Augusten Burroughs’ books that I have history and knowledge. This incredible ever read (Running with Scissors is next on my list) and I loved it! No story of a group of mild-mannered librar- matter how often I wanted to put it down, I just could not do it. ians’ quest to save hundreds of thousands of priceless manuscripts – Rob Eckman, St. Martin’s, $26.99 Editor’s note: Burroughs will be at from the destructive hands of Al Qaeda is impossible to put down. TKE on Tuesday, April 5, 7 p.m. Hammer weaves together centuries of Islamic history into a thrilling heist story of dedicated book lovers working tirelessly to preserve North African intellectual traditions. – Rachel Haisley, Simon & Schuster $26 Editor’s note: publication date, 4/19. 9 NONFICTION

Brilliant Beacons: A History of the trajectory and course changes for unmanned missions like Voyager American Lighthouse, Eric Jay Dolin and Mariner. These women were space pioneers; hopefully this book When the Federal Congress convened brings them the recognition they’ve long deserved. in 1789, one of the first issues it took up – Paula Longhurst, Little Brown, $27 was whether the federal government or Lab Girl, Hope Jahren the states would be in charge of light- From the first sentence of this debut houses. This history of those lighthouses memoir, I wished that Hope Jahren could is wondrously wide-ranging and endlessly be my best friend. Smart, funny, thought- fascinating, featuring, among others, the ful, Jahren’s study of and undying love farsighted colonists who built the first for plant life leaps (and creeps) from the lighthouses on the East Coast to welcome pages of this book. Whether she’s study- commerce safely to their shores. It is also ing a hackberry’s atomic make-up or a history of government ineptitude and shepherding grad students in the lab and international competition. Only by finally emulating lighthouses across the country, Jahren’s curiosity and from across the oceans did America raise its lighthouse system from compassion is always on display. Amidst one mired in mediocrity to one that was among the best in the world. all the natural wonder, however is the From the author that brought us Leviathan: The History of Whaling reality of life as a research scientist. Wor- in America and Fur, Fortune and Empire. – Sue Fleming, Liveright, ries over funding for everything from salaries to Post-It notes and test $29.95 tubes depend on Jahren’s ability to put just the right word on the page Louisa, the Extraordinary Life of Mrs. in an endless cycle of grant writing. Luckily for us, she took time to Adams, Louisa Thomas write this book; it’s spring and it’s time to read about growing, green Louisa Catherine Johnson was born things! – Anne Holman, Knopf, $26.95 in London in 1775, on the eve of the Most Blessed of Patriarchs, Annette American Revolution, to a British mother Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf and American father. Twenty-two years Thomas Jefferson may be the most inter- later she was married to John Quincy esting, complex, and certainly the most Adams, much to the disapproval of his widely written-about of the Founding parents, John and Abigail Adams. Abigail Fathers. Pulitzer Prize author Gordon- in particular was dismayed that her son, Reed (Hemingses of Monticello) and destined to be a public servant, had fallen Onuf (well-known Jefferson historian) for this young woman who had known try to peel back the mystery which is only high society, could not manage a Jefferson by telling his story through household, nor even prepare a meal on her own. Throughout their several phases of his life: that of a farmer, married life Louisa never felt she “belonged” to John or his family, plantation manager, author, statesman for nor to America. John’s short fuse and strident manner lost friends Virginia and the newly formed United abroad and also in Congress when he was elected as a senator. This States, emissary to France, husband, father and grandfather. Their biography tells the history of a woman of the 18th and 19th centuries formidable scholarship and prodigious research lend the reader per- who had no power of her own and little respect from her husband spective on the struggle within Jefferson as author of the Declaration and family who, when the two together eventually occupied the of Independence while a committed slave owner, dedicated scientist White House, finally found her own voice. – Sue Fleming, Penguin while committed to the status quo of the planter culture. Definitely a Press, $29.95 book for history lovers, especially those interested in the birth of this Rise of the Rocket Girls, Nathalia Holt country and one of its most important Founding Fathers. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory started as – Pat Fleming, Liveright , $27.95 a division of Cal Tech the members of which were known as the ‘suicide squad’ MYSTERY/THRILLER because of their propensity for blowing things up (on campus!). JPL used a lot The Waters of Eternal Youth, Donna Leon of computers in its early days, back when Commissario Guido Brunetti, as cynical as ever, has been invited the word ‘computer’ was used to define to meet Contessa Demetriana Lando-Continui. Well into her 80s, a math genius who could turn strings of the Contessa wants to know before she dies what happened to her figures into useful data armed with just a granddaughter, Manuela, who, years before, had either fallen or notebook and pencil. The ‘computers’ at been thrown into a Venetian canal. Although rescued, she had been JPL were all women with mad math skills deprived of oxygen and the resultant damage was permanent. The and an unshakeable work ethic. They police investigation at the time had turned up nothing to indicate literally got the space program off the ground long before NASA even foul play, but Brunetti’s interest is engaged. As he begins to make en- existed. You still see their work in every launch and they plotted the quiries we are pulled into the lives of the characters—particularly the 10 MYSTERY/THRILLER sweet Manuela. For those who love mys- tricky dealings, his character, which is closer to con man than secret teries of the classic style, no one writes agent. Rescued from Berlin by his father-in-law in 1961 and sent back them better than Leon. The Waters of to facilitate a prisoner exchange in 1965, Joe is ever alert for any angle Eternal Youth is one of her best. – Betsy (this time one involving an inordinate amount of fine Bordeaux) in Burton, Atlantic Monthly Press, $26 an often-funny tale of derring-do set in a Cold War world inhabited Midnight Sun, by Khrushchev, Kennedy, MI6 and a large assemblage of interna- Jo Nesbo tional spies. A dream read for thriller aficionados. – Betsy Burton, Atlantic Monthly, $26 The past has finally caught No Shred of Evidence, Charles Todd up with Jon Inspector Ian Rutledge, along with his Hansen; he constant reminder of WWI, the internal isn’t a killer voice of Hamish, is in northern Cornwall. and that’s a bit Four young women on holiday have been of a hitch as he’s the fixer for a notorious boating on the river Camel when they drug dealer known as ‘The Fisherman’ spot a man floundering in a sinking boat. and his two ‘kills’ have just been exposed In trying to save his life they are accused as fakes. Jon goes on the run, boarding a of his murder and kept under house arrest bus in the dead of night and arriving in in the home of the local magistrate, the the isolated Sami town of Kaslund. Here father of one of the girls. Scotland Yard he changes his name to Ulf and poses as a hunter. But The Fisher- is called in because of the prominence of man’s new fixer is closing in and he never gives up until he sees a the families involved, but the community, body… – Paula Longhurst, Knopf, $23.95 angry residents filled with superstition and old grudges, seems set Journey to Munich, Jacqueline Winspear against the women. Another killing leads to confusion between the two cases while Rutledge, with the constant hidden voice of Hamish Munich is the latest destination for Maisie guiding him, searches for that “shred of evidence” which will lead to Dobbs who is now a widow attempting to the true killer or killers. Todd not only plots tightly but creates wild come to terms with her new life. Return- rural settings and complex characters. – Wendy Foster Leigh, Wil- ing to London in 1938 from her Spanish liam Morrow, $25.99 adventures, she is approached by old ac- quaintances from the Secret Service who King Maybe, Timothy Hallinan convince her to assist them in the freeing Junior Bender, L.A. burglar extraordinare, of an important British citizen from no sooner escapes from one housebreak- Dachau. This is a moment in time when ing caper than he is coerced into another, England can still negotiate with Germany and yet another—the last at the home of a prior to the official declaration of war. Hollywood mogul of extremely bad char- German officials will only release the acter. It appears someone in Hollywood man to his dangerously ill daughter, and Maisie will play that role. In is attempting to entrap Junior, someone is addition to the government’s request, a powerful industrialist recruits doing the same to his teenage daughter in her to search for his daughter who may be a Nazi sympathizer. Maisie her Hollywood high school, his girlfriend does not care for the woman but becomes involved because of her won’t speak to him and things are looking natural curiosity and commitment to her country. An evocation of grim. But Junior has contacts in high (if that time period when war was inevitable and hope waning, what life criminal) places and creative is his middle must have been like for the citizens of England and Germany, Win- name. Watching him dodge and feint and plan is pure pleasure but spear’s book reflects on the dangers of the Nazi regime and artfully the real joy of reading this fourth in the Junior Bender series is the projects that danger into the present time. – Wendy Foster Leigh, fast, lippy, ever-cynical dialogue. A quick pick-me-up when life looks HarperCollins, $26.99 dark. – Betsy Burton, Soho, $25.95 The Unfortunate Englishman, The Letter Writer, Dan Fesperman John Lawton An explosion on the ship Normandie The second in Lawton’s Joe Wilderness marks Woodrow Cain’s arrival in New series involves, among many other things, York City. Only months after Pearl Har- a spy exchange on Berlin’s Bridge of Spies bor, the city reeks of paranoia, and Cain, a the backstory of which spins the reader Southerner taking up a detective posi- from London to Vienna to Moscow tion in the 14th precinct, is having to go to Berlin—East and West alike—from along with the culture of corruption in his WWII forward into the 1960s in a wilder- new precinct just in order to do his job. ness of covert activities. Complicating ev- Cain’s first case, that of a dead immigrant erything is Joe himself, his proclivity for dock worker, brings him to the attention 11 MYSTERY/THRILLER of Max Danziger who provides a letter-writing service for the local, three books ago, his tone straightforward and clear, appealing to mainly illiterate, immigrant population. He has some information curious readers who want to learn more about Ghana and its customs that ties in with Cain’s case. Information, his currency, is also the through the eyes of an observant police officer and his family. thing that could get him killed if he and Cain can’t quickly learn to – Wendy Foster Leigh, Soho Press, $26.95 trust each other. As the two begin working together they have no idea The Taxidermist’s Daughter, Kate Mosse what kind of unholy alliances they are about to uncover. – Paula Longhurst, Knopf, $26.95 April, 1912. Who is the woman in the beautiful blue coat, keeping an eye on Runaway, Peter May Constantia Gifford’s father and the four Neither a mystery nor a literary novel but other men meeting in a west Sussex a combination of the two, this is a book churchyard at midnight? Is she the same is about journeys, both real and meta- woman found dead in the river close to phorical. Why are three 67-year-old men the Giffords’ isolated home days later? attempting to relive a past that involves Connie is determined to find out as her running off to London when they were father has vanished and the incident has 17 by taking that same trip again? The stirred some long-buried memories of answer takes a full novel to explain. a past wiped out by an accident when Nothing came easy to them on that first Connie was 12 years old. A face, a voice trip south in 1965 when The Beatles were and, a crow? In the vein of Rebecca and Turn of the Screw, Mosse has beginning their reign and LSD was the created a gothic Poe-like tale. – Paula Longhurst, William Morrow, drug of choice. It included stolen vehicles, $26.99 murder, and decisions that have haunted them for 50 years—choices Fool Me Once, Harlan Coben they made that need to be put to rest before they die. May gives noth- ing away; readers must be vigilant in watching for clues and asking Don’t pick this one up at bedtime—un- questions as the two stories unspool side by side in perfectly blended less, of course you have a need to stay up narratives. He brings the tale to a dramatic end in 2015, answering all night. Maya, home from Afghanistan, the questions why and why not in the process. – Wendy Foster Leigh, has just buried her husband who had Quercus, $26.99 been attacked and shot to death in Cen- tral Park—and the detective investigating Kill and Be Killed, Louis Begley her husband’s murder clearly suspects In this sequel to last year’s Killer Come her. The mother of a 2-year-old daughter, Hither, Jack Dana, former marine now Maya has hired a nanny, and when her full-time writer who avenged his Uncle best friend talks her into using a nanny Harry’s murder and lost his lover, Kerry, cam, the first thing she sees on its screen in the process, is still in love with her and is the image of her dead husband. So begins a tale that delves deep plans to show her just how much by flying into character, into the relationship between money and power, and to New York all the way from Italy to try into the responsibilities of parenthood as we follow on the heels of a to win her back. Before he can do so, ter- mother/soldier tortured by PTSD. Foundering in grief at the death rible news reaches him. Jack has no time of her husband and of her sister who had been shot and killed before to mourn Kerry’s death. Someone is after she came home, Maya is determined to get at the truth of the deaths. him, too. – Paula Longhurst, Doubleday, Her actions are as impulsive and unpredictable as the plot Coben has $25.95 devised, and the facts she turns up ever deepen the mystery. She is at Gold of Our Fathers, Kwei Quartey the heart of every scene, her mother’s heart the core of every action, the drive toward truth the beating heart of the book, propelling us Police procedurals commonly feature a forward page after riveting page. – Betsy Burton, Dutton, $28 hard-working group of police officers led by a bright, often nontraditional detective The Infidel Stain, M.J. Carter who comes in conflict with his supe- Blake and Avery are two adventurers who rior. Darko Dawson has become Chief have returned from India to the England Inspector in the Ghana Police Service of 1841, Avery now a country gentleman, and is transferred from Accra to a remote Blake still the adventurer combing the Ashanti Region, Obusai, which is noted alleyways of London as though they were for illegal gold mines and the exploita- the jungles of India. A series of gruesome tion of the locals by Chinese mine owners murders of printers becomes the focal who are abusing not only the miners but point of their reunion when a social cru- the land itself. Dawson is called upon to sader hires them to find the killers. The solve the murder of a Chinese mine owner while battling internal newly formed police force is not interest- corruption in his own department. Quartey created his character ed in the murders until a prominent pub-

12 MYSTERY/THRILLER lisher of a sleazy press is killed; now Blake and Avery are manipulated by powerful forces, members of the establishment and of the Chartist Movement demanding the right to vote, all determined to stop them by any means. The of the times is loose, and Carter is a 1519 S 1500 E SLC 84105 801.468.1515 storyteller who spins together tales of childhood workhouses, labor, and prisons in another intriguing historical mystery. – Wendy Foster Join us for Gallery Stroll every Leigh, Putnam, $26.95 third Friday of the month The Murder of Mary Russell, Laurie King In the most recent episode of “Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson complained to Dr. Wat- son that she was “more than just a plot device,” and here King gives her center stage. Sherlock Holmes’ Sussex home has been invaded, there’s a pool of blood on the floor, the raw scent of cordite in the air and no sign of Mary Russell, except for bloody drag marks leading to the front door. What has become of her and what part did the redoubtable Mrs. Hudson play in her murder? – Paula Longhurst, Bantam, $28 SPECULATIVE FICTION Aaron Bushnell Original Art, Jewelry, Gifts Arcadia, Iain Pears Custom Framing I had no idea while reading this new Pears novel that it was conceived and Art | Gifts | Framing | Private Event Rental written for an app, but fortunately, an electronic format is not needed for the Open Monday—Fridays 10am-6pm ultimate enjoyment of this dense and Saturdays 10am-5pm satisfying book. Exceedingly complex, [email protected] but ultimately rewarding, it defies any categorizing into genre. It is a spy story, a fantasy, an historical novel, a romance, a mythology and a work of science fic- tion. Episodic and vignette-like, it is very team she assembles, pilots Kara and Ryan, cinematic, jumping from multiple worlds linguist Vincent and geneticist Alicia, and shifting points of view, extremely visual and harmonic. Begun in gathers the parts with the assistance of an Oxford pub where Henry Lytten tells his fellow friends about the “the man with no name,” a person who story he is writing, this is reminiscent of Tolkein and C.S. Lewis; we seems to wield more power than the suddenly find ourselves with Jay inside the tale and then slammed commander in chief. Is his interest in into another, dystopian universe. What is real, where are we? We the device as philanthropic as he claims? follow Jay, Rosie and Angela among several others—10 story lines in A more thoughtful brand of sci fi, told all—across time and perhaps into other worlds. ‘Qui moderator tem- through the team’s interviews with Mr. pus intelligit Omnia’ says the Lytten family motto: ‘He who controls No Name, news reports, and insight from time understands everything.’ Angela allows the math in her head to the team-members’ private journal en- equate while she dreams, readers will carry this plot and its charac- tries, the story moves at a good clip to an ters with them after putting it down for the night and long after the intriguing conclusion. A sequel is coming. final chapter. – Anne Stewart Mark, Knopf, $27.95 – Paula Longhurst, Del Rey, $26 Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel Like your science fiction with a dash ofThe Day the Earth Stood Still? Then this is for you. Dr. Rose Franklin was 11 years old when she fell down a hole, was rescued, and inadvertently discovered a gi- ant mechanoid hand. Rose, now a physicist, is involved in a project to reunite the parts of a device that no one on earth could’ve built. The

13 NEW IN PAPER

to Francescho del Cossa, the artist whose painting George and her FICTION mother have been viewing. And then Francescho is visiting George, watching this strange young woman who’s gazing at the painting. Martin Marten, Brian Doyle Layered? Absolutely. Puzzling? From time to time. And madcap and joyous and tender and fascinating and wildly inventive and gender- A boy named Dave and a marten named bending and time-traveling and post-modern in the most entertain- Martin live on Mount Hood. It’s as simple ing of ways—a quirky, quixotic wonder of a book. – Betsy Burton, and as complicated as that. If you look at Anchor, $15.99 the life span of a marten, Dave and Mar- tin are basically teenagers together during A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler this wild and wondrous coming-of-age Anne Tyler is a master at showing us what story. As we follow the lives and loves lies just beneath the surface of a “typical” atop their mountain over the course of a American family. As we weave back and year, we can’t help but be spellbound by forth between three generations of the the creatures, great and small, mythic and Whitshank clan, it’s in the small details magical, as Doyle pulls us into the tale, that we learn who they are as opposed to wrapping us up and carrying us along for who they think they are. We meet Junior the ride. Give yourself the gift of an afternoon and read this novel in (!) who has tried to escape his Appala- a single sitting with a cup of tea, a blanket and all the love that we af- chian childhood only to be pursued by ford our fellow sentient beings. You won’t be disappointed. Linnie Mae right into marriage. And his – Anne Holman, Picador, $16 son Red, who is just Red, and comfortable The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro in his skin. Red’s wife Abby is a central character, a keeper of secrets and promises. And of their four chil- Ishiguro’s wondrous new novel is an epic dren, Denny seems the most secretive and detached, but why? Tyler’s in the truest sense of the word. Two elder- characters are like people I know in real life, their concerns and com- ly Britons set out on a quiet sunny day to plexities addictively involving because they seem so true. rejoin the son whom they believe resides – Anne Holman, Ballantine, $16 in a nearby village. The reasons for his departure are lost in the mists of mem- Barefoot Dogs: Stories, ory—mists which hover over their land Antonio Ruiz-Camacho as if arisen from the River Lethe, erasing There are few things more exciting for both fond and bitter recollections. Legend readers than discovering new voices— has it that this state of forgetfulness is voices that surprise. Antonio Ruiz-Cama- caused by the fog of a dragon’s breath and cho is possessed of such a voice—or more that should said dragon be slain, accurately voices—each first-person, each will return. Along their path, the couple distinctive. There are the voices of privi- meet a boy, a Saxon warrior, and Sir Gawain, aging nephew to the leged youth, eager, innocent, bewildered, now-dead King Arthur. The journey these people take in search of and those of adults trying to make sense memory, the decisions they make, the ways their destinies intertwine of the world and each other. The reader’s and play out form a tale that is wondrous, deeply touching, as large realization that in some sense Barefoot in scope as humanity and history and as particular as love or as the Dogs is more than a mere collection poetry at the book’s heart. – Betsy Burton, Vintage, $15 of disconnected tales—that they have more in common than the How to Be Both, Ali Smith violence that pervades modern Mexico, the aftermath of that violence on lives lived far away—is gradual, revelatory. Simple details reso- George’s mother exists only in the past nate across stories, gaining metaphorical power, connections emerge tense. She’s dead, and George’s grief is all- informing us—about a country, a way of consuming—except when she slips into life, and a set of characters you will never the present tense and is suddenly reliving forget. – Betsy Burton, Scribner, $14 a witty, words-as-weapons confrontation: lippy teenage daughter versus sophisti- The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir cated, highly-educated mom. Witticisms Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe, fly, sarcasm abounds, doors slam, and Romain Puértolas sometimes the whole scene melts into Ajatashatru Oghash Rathod, the fakir, laughter. But then George is back in the flies from Rajasthan, India, to Paris to present and her mom is once again past purchase the Hertsyörbåk bed of nails ad- tense. Gone. We slip-slide again into time vertised for a mere €99 by IKEA. Unfor- past as George, her brother, and their mother head for Italy in pursuit tunately (but fortunately for the reader), of a painting—the middle panel of a fresco by a 15th century Renais- that model is out of stock until the next sance artist. Before long the reader is flung back to that time and morning, and Aja opts to spend the 14 FICTION night in the “bedroom” section of the giant store. And so our fakir’s O’Nan’s compassionate and complex adventure begins. In a wild series of mistaken identities, misunder- portrait of one of the greatest literary standings, and pure mishaps, he ends up traveling all over Western icons of our time manages to evoke Hol- Europe (and Africa!) in a variety of contraptions that include a hot air lywood’s glitter and wit while at the same balloon. What could seem contrived in less capable hands is instead time bringing us inside the mind and a fast-paced, satiric fable that makes us laugh out loud one minute, heart of a man torn—torn between his cheer the next. – Anne Holman, Vintage, $17 sense of duty to his old love, his troubled Funny Girl, Nick Hornby wife Zelda, his blooming love for Sheila Graham, her love/hate relationship with Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl is not sad-fun- him due to his love/hate relationship with ny like the “Funny Girl” of Streisand fame alcohol, and perhaps most touching of all, but sunny funny. It’s not just that Barbara, his love for his daughter. What emerges the protagonist, is funny, it’s that she from the stew of Fitzgerald’s need is a wants the world to know it. She’s grown masterful portrayal of a man of contradic- up listening to “I Love Lucy” on the tube tions: weak yet utterly heroic, the ultimate insider who’s at heart an and wants to be Lucille Ball. To make outsider, a self-doubter who is, whatever his doubts, a writer through people laugh. The fact that most people— and through. – Betsy Burton, Penguin, $16 or at least most men—are interested in Barbara’s shape, which is statuesque, and The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, her pretty face makes her mad. But she’s Christopher Scotten determined, and it comes as no surprise Seen through the eyes of 14-year-old to the reader when she lands her dream Kevin, Medgar, Kentucky, comes alive as job. Two playwrights, one openly gay—or at least as open as anyone a melting pot of the best and the worst could be in 1964 London—and one uncertain about his sexuality, of coal-dependent Appalachia in the late have penned a successful sitcom and are trying to write another. 1980s. Mountain top removal mining is The highs and lows of said sitcom, which is the perfect vehicle for dividing the town into those who need Barbara’s talent, is the stuff of this often riotous and as often touching the jobs and those who recognize that book. Hornby has a knack for softening us up with laughter and then mountains can’t be rebuilt. Kevin and his delivering some home truths. No one escapes his scalpel in Funny mother have come “home” to live with his Girl, but the reader walks away laughing nonetheless. – Betsy Burton, grandfather, Pops, and Audy Ray, Pop’s Riverhead, $16 housekeeper, in the wake of Kevin’s little If I Fall, If I Die, Michael Christie brother’s death. While his mother spends the summer prostrate and grieving, Kevin accompanies Pops on his large animal veterinary A tangled skein of friendship and fear, appointments. With each new character he meets, Kevin learns hard, boyhood, parenthood, humor, love and wonderful lessons about the nature of good and evil that can coexist death are threaded together with gor- in each person. The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is a coming-of-age geous prose in this startling, soul-rattling story and so much more. – Anne Holman, Grand Central, $14.99 debut novel. Will has never been Outside. For as long as he can remember his life And, in keeping with our desire to feature backlist titles, one, won- has consisted of meals his mother cooks derful contemporary classic: in the slow cooker, laundry he does in the The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard basement where she’s afraid to venture, WWII has just ended when two Aus- long hours spent painting what she deems tralian sisters, Grace, whose nature is his masterpieces. When, one day, he fi- described by her name, and Caro, more nally decides to brave the unknown world angular in terms of beauty and charac- beyond their front door, she is terrified, but he goes despite her pleas. ter, encounter the Englishmen who will His first foray into the wilderness of the unknown is brief and trau- subsume their lives. The result is not only matic but also enticing. Before long, he goes again. And again. What a rapturous love story but a novel of ideas he ultimately finds outside their walls, and what he discovers about as adept at skewering society as people, his loving but agoraphobic mother, is the stuff of this wildly inven- as astute about global conflict as about tive, beautifully written, weird and wonderful tale. – Betsy Burton, love. The writing, at once luminous and Hogarth, $15 precise, is heart-stopping, hair-raising, West of Sunset, Stewart O’Nan the sweep of story hugely engrossing, the F. Scott Fitzgerald is tired. He’s just been to visit Zelda and as usual result brilliant. – Betsy Burton, Penguin, $16 it hasn’t gone well. He needs to make money—to support her and their daughter Scottie. Now in Hollywood, one of his old haunts, he’s trying to leave the past behind—and to stay on the wagon so he can get some work done, something hard to do in that particular town. 15 NONFICTION

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the What Comes Next and How to Like It, Lusitania, Erik Larson Abigail Thomas Almost three years to the date after the What Comes Next and How to Like It is sinking of the British passenger liner Ti- the perfect title for Thomas’s thoughtful tanic by an iceberg, another British luxury and reassuring memoir of growing into ocean liner is sunk, though this time by a old age, growing up in the process, and of German submarine in an act of war. Pas- the true value of a friendship maintained sengers aboard the Lusitania on May 15, and nurtured over time. The friend- 1915, include a record number of women ship takes place between Thomas and a and children because of a special promo- male colleague with whom she initially tion to safely deliver home British citizens bonds over the slush pile at the publish- anxious to join family members threat- ing house where they both work—and ened by Germany and her allies. Erik over a shared proclivity for laughter. This Larsen weaves his peculiar magic in introducing us to the captains of truly is a friendship rather than a romance—a relationship between both the Lusitania and the German submarine, about whom he has two people who see the world from a similar angle more often than new information—as he does about the extraordinary circumstances not, and who, when they do differ in perspective, are informed rather that placed the ocean liner in the path of disaster. Larson uses a myri- than annoyed by the difference. Although both know tragedy, their ad of documents from Cunard, Woodrow Wilson’s papers, Churchill’s friendship persists, grows and deepens, despite complications intro- memoirs and the log of U20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania, to duced when the romance of one scorches the life of the other. This bring the events surrounding the sinking to life. The effect of this sin- is a bittersweet chronicle of a woman’s descent—or perhaps ascent is gular event on the psyche of the isolationists in the U.S. is immediate; a more accurate description—into the stage of life characterized by this centennial remembrance of but one incident that pulled us closer retreat rather than engagement and more likely populated by pets to engaging fully in World War I is highly recommended by both of and grandchildren than by lovers. Which is not to say that the author us. – Sue Fleming and Paula Longhurst, Broadway Books, $17 Editor’s has in any way given up or given in, rather that she has learned not note: Erik Larson will be at Rowland Hall on Monday, April 18, 7 p.m. just to face reality but to live with it, something that her unique and H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald lovely friendship no doubt helped teach her. Thomas has a benign and lovely sense of humor, but best of all she’s dead honest—about Many things can knock a life off-keel. herself, about her loved ones (including her beloved dogs), and about In H Is for Hawk scholar and natural- life. Amusing, moving, wise, and vastly comforting. Maybe growing ist Macdonald describes losing her path old isn’t going to be so bad after all. I’m beginning to think I might forward on the day she lost her father. like it. – Betsy Burton, Scribner, $15 He had taught her how to watch—how to see the world around her. Now, suddenly Leaving Before the Rains Come, without him, she could no longer fight Alexandra Fuller her way clear of the dark wilderness that A starred review in describes her bereavement had made of that world. Fuller’s newest book as, “powerful, raw An ongoing fascination for T.H. White, and painful.” It is all of that. Yet told with one of the most beloved authors of her her inimitable humor, what could other- childhood, is woven into H Is for Hawk; wise be unrelenting sadness is mitigated what White had in common with our by her ability to laugh at some of the less- grieving orphaned author, was, aside from scholarship, an unsettling than-funny situations in which she found fascination with reptilian killers. With Goshawks. Driven by an inde- herself—both as a child growing up and finable longing, Macdonald buys a young goshawk, Mabel by name, later as an adult during the eventual dis- and together woman and bird learn the fine art of murder in the solution of her marriage. Possessed of the natural world. Mabel grows less wild over time while the author be- same piercing observations apparent in her other nonfiction, Fuller’s comes more so—an irony that isn’t lost on the scholar or the natural- latest book is a much more personal look into her life and those of ist or the historian in Macdonald. Bent on illumination, she employs her husband Charlie and their children. words as torches to shed light on birds of prey—T.H. White’s use Her love of life and place is apparent on of feral, ferocious, fey, free as a lexicon for taming, along with such every page. – Jan Sloan, Penguin, $17 words as Jess, hood, string, tether transmitter. Each term has double Between You & Me: Confessions of a meanings, each act is ambivalent, each consequence a surprise in this Comma Queen, Mary Norris dazzling revelation of the natural world and of human nature—of death, yes, and of soaring, unquenchable life. – Betsy Burton, Grove The only thing more fun than a book Press, $16 Editor’s note: Helen Macdonald will be at TKE on Monday, about correct grammar usage is one that Wednesday, April 6, 7 p.m. includes the ins and outs of appropriate swear word protocol. A lead copy edi- tor at The New Yorker for more than 30 years, Norris knows whereof she speaks 16 NONFICTION MYSTERY/THRILLER

(or writes). Although her advice is serious, she uses her everyday looting a local country estate—but it goes life experiences, past and present, to make us laugh and learn at the deeper than that. On the day that the same time. Who among us hasn’t wanted to be a fly on the wall in the boys are paroled, Grace is terrified that offices of the famous weekly magazine, gleefully watching Wallace one of them will find her French bolt- Shawn or David Remnick wield their mighty pen? I’ll never read a hole and come to collect the treasure she New Yorker article the same way, or The New York Times, or anything absconded with, a treasure she no longer else for that matter. I just hope the commas in this paragraph are cor- has. How far will she unravel before any rect! – Anne Holman, Norton, $15.95 survival instinct kicks in? Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in – Paula Longhurst, Penguin, $16 Vichy France, Caroline Moorehead Descent, In a remote area of France high in the Tim Johnston mountains adjacent to the border with The disap- Switzerland, Jews and others deemed “un- pearance of desirables” were hidden from the Nazis a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. and their Vichy collaborators. Farm fami- The Courtlands are a typical American lies took in children as well as adults, and family vacationing in Colorado before a complex organization was established to 18-year-old Caitlin leaves for college coordinate their constant oversight. The in Wisconsin on a full scholarship for threat of discovery was ever-present, and track and field. The trip to the Rockies is the courageous actions of these protectors her graduation gift and all she wants to saved thousands from the gas chambers. do is run, at high altitude, to her heart’s That many of the protectors were themselves captured and sent to content. And then everything goes wrong. the concentration camps only accentuates their bravery in the face of What’s fascinating about this mystery is the way we get in to each of unspeakable evil. Moorehead’s research brings to light a little-known the main characters’ heads and feel his or her pain and confusion. facet of World War II in France. – Barbara Hoagland, Harper Peren- There are a few cracks in this outwardly happy family, and Caitlin’s nial, $16.99 disappearance pushes each of them further inside themselves and away from one another. We follow them down their very separate MYSTERY/THRILLER paths and, at the same time, are privy to Caitlin’s story as well. Once you get to the end of this frightening novel, you’ll look up and realize Night Life, David Taylor you stayed up all night. It’s that good. – Anne Holman, Algonquin, $15.99 It’s New York City circa 1954. The McCar- thy madness is in full swing, and Michael Falling in Love, Donna Leon Cassidy is a detective who doesn’t like to Flavia Petrelli, whom Leon lovers have follow orders that don’t make sense. He’s met before (in the first Brunetti mystery, already thrown an abusive cop out a third Death at La Fenice and again in my story window when, in the course of an personal favorite, Acqua Alta), is back arrest, he crosses Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s in Venice and in glorious voice, sing- right-hand-man. Cassidy’s father, a well- ing Tosca. The night Brunetti comes to known Broadway producer, is an immi- hear her, her performance is delivered to grant with a fierce love for America and a a thundering standing ovation—and to past that makes him vulnerable. Cassidy’s yellow roses carpeting the stage, making girlfriend has just left him and loneliness it hard to walk. Somehow they have made makes him vulnerable. When a beautiful woman moves in next door their way into her dressing room as well, and an investigation into the torture and murder of a dancer in the delivered by an anonymous admirer who cast of his father’s play is pulled out from under him by the FBI, it is clearly following her and whose attentions become increasingly becomes increasingly clear that Cassidy is knee-deep in something worrisome—particularly after a young student in whom Flavia has more than merely dangerous. Red scares, loyalty oaths, turf wars be- shown interest is badly injured. And so Flavia turns for help—as she tween the FBI and the nascent CIA; conservatives, communists, poli- had twice before—to Commissario Guido Brunetti. Brunetti under- ticians and the military all vying for power; missing photographs and stands that the flowers are a threat, one he takes seriously. The ensu- missing bodies… A 1950s thriller that is also a classic mean-streets ing investigation takes us backstage at the opera, across the canals of noir detective story, Night Life isn’t a book to start in the evening— Venice, in and out of the dining rooms of Brunetti’s wife Paula and unless you plan on reading until dawn. – Betsy Burton, Forge, $15.99 her family in yet another mystery as nuanced, exquisite and fulsome Unbecoming, Rebecca Scherm as the meals so deliciously described in its pages. The heady combina- tion of high art, intelligent characterization and the bracing cynicism Julie is from California, scraping together a living restoring antiques of Brunetti as he pursues a shadowy figure make this—like all of in Paris. Grace is from Garland, Tennessee; she’s a wife and a thief. Donna Leon’s mysteries—an addiction worth acquiring. Grace became Julie after her husband and lover were arrested for – Betsy Burton, Grove, $16 17 MYSTERY/THRILLER

The Whites, Richard Price (writing as A Fine Summer’s Day, Charles Todd Harry Brandt) England is enjoying a fine summer day A quality revenge thriller is always a con- in 1914, and Ian Rutledge is beginning frontation with the limits of human for- his career as an inspector with Scotland giveness. What can you live with? What Yard. He is in love with a beautiful, young keeps you up at night? For Billy Graves and flighty woman. The country is awash and his friends, a tight group of mostly with rumors of war on the Continent, retired detectives who call themselves yet crime continues at its usual pace the Wild Geese, it’s the Whites. The ones and Rutledge finds himself involved in who got away. Every Goose has his or her a series of unexplained murders—mur- own White, a slick perp who never paid ders he must solve before he reports to for his crimes, and even decades after the duty on the Western Front. Although the first Goose retired they still talk about the crimes take place in various towns, they Whites like fresh wounds when they go out for drinks. They repre- have a common thread—each victim once lived in Bristol. For fans sent a moral debt left unpaid to the victims and their families and to of Charles Todd mysteries, this book takes place prior to Rutledge’s hear these cops tell it, no end would be too cruel for any one of the time in France and prior to his meeting with the Scottish Highlander. Whites. Which is why when they start turning up dead, Billy—the Readers will have “ah ha” moments when they realize just how the only member of the Wild Geese still on the force— begins to sus- pieces of all 16 previous mysteries relate to Rutledge’s past. pect the worst of his best friends. At the same time, a violent stalker – Wendy Foster Leigh, William Morrow, $14.99 emerges and targets Billy’s family in his quest to satisfy a lifetime The Chessmen, Peter May vendetta against Billy’s wife Carmen. As Graves uncovers the darkest secrets of his most intimate companions, he fights through a classi- Inspector Fin Macleod is now settled on cally noir moral quandary: loyalty to family and friends, or loyalty to the Isle of Lewis making a new life out some higher law that would require you to sacrifice your family and of an old one in the final of the friends? On the other side of the fight, Billy Graves learns what ev- Lewis trilogy. He finds his new position as eryone else in his life seems to already know—that some moral debts head of security for a local landowner baf- can never be cleared while others can never be claimed. fling when he’s confronted with conflicts – Kenneth Loosli, Picador, $16 of landowner versus poachers and the conflicts of a newly found son and a lover. The Unquiet Dead, Ausma Zehanat Khan While renewing acquaintance with a The Unquiet Dead may at first glance repeat poacher who happens to be an old appear to be a typical if well-written friend, a “bog burst” drains a loch of wa- mystery. It begins with and a ter exposing the skeleton of a light aircraft question: the death, a fatal plunge from a containing of a man they both Canadian cliff top, the question, was now- knew. Musician Roddy Mackenzie had disappeared over 17 years ago dead Christopher Drayton pushed, did and, realizing this was not an accident, Macleod switches into his he jump, or was his death an accident? inspector mode only to discover ancient rivalries and feuds which And why has an old friend at the Justice have been buried with the aircraft are now surfacing.The Chessmen Department asked Muslim detective Esa are a group of 12th century chess pieces found on the island and now Khattak, whose division involves commu- in the British Museum and the Museum of Scotland—chess men of nity relations, not homicide, to lead the which Fin’s old friend has carved replicas for an island celebration. investigation? Fragmentary clues begin They represent the emotions, jealousies, feuds of the islanders who to appear in beheaded scraps of letters in Drayton’s library—scraps readers of this trilogy by now know and care about. The Chessmen of story that head each chapter of the book and that float through rounds out May’s picture of island life with all its strengths and weak- its text like faded memories. Amassing over the course of the novel, nesses. Read The Blackhouseand The they gradually coalesce into the picture of war-torn Bosnia. And Lewis Man first to fully realize the power suddenly Esa’s assignment begins to make sense as Drayton’s real of the Lewis trilogy. – Wendy Foster identity emerges from the shadows. Just as suddenly we realize this Leigh, Quercus, $14.99 is far more than a mere piece of genre fiction. So skilled is Kahn in As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust: A character development that we become intimate with the detectives Flavia de Luce Novel, Alan Bradley and with the suspects they’re investigating, know their private fears and failures, know the history they’re becoming increasingly aware Flavia has been sent to an upper-crust of, led on by the search for the truth that is at the heart of every good Canadian finishing school where her book. In the end, The Unquiet Dead brings the unimaginable to life, mother’s academic and leadership skills illuminating and personalizing the lives—and deaths—of those long have secured her place on the school’s buried. It can be hard to read, but, ironically, it is impossible to put wall of fame. The rooms are identified down. It’s a book I’ll never forget. – Betsy Burton, Minotaur, $15.99 by the names of former students rather than numbers. On her first day, a mum- 18 MYSTERY/THRILLER mified skeleton falls out of the fireplace, and Flavia launches her first investigation on foreign soil. Mysteries abound, students appear and disappear, as Flavia slinks from the chemistry lab to the laundry to the nearest grocery seeking clues, a task at which she is expert, while offering appropriate Shakespearean quotes, of course. – Kathy Ashton, Bantam, $15 Fear the Darkness, Becky Masterman In her world you’re either an amusement, useful or in her way. Retired FBI agent Brigid Quinn may be stalking 60 but she can still take down a man half her age. Brigid’s Tucson-based PI business is humming along as is her marriage to Carlo. The Quinns have just lost Brigid’s sister, and Brigid made a promise to take in her niece, Gemma-Kate. That could be the worst mistake she ever made. Within days of the girl’s arrival one of the family pets has fallen ill, and Brigid, investigat- ing the case of a young man drowned in suspicious circumstances, is concerned. She confides in her friend Mallory that the girl may have a little too much of the Quinn dark side about her, but Brigid isn’t feeling quite like herself either. – Paula Longhurst, Griffin, $15.99

Independent Booksellers Revisit and Rediscover Titles

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler, Beacon Press, $16 The Salt Eaters, Toni Cade Bambara,Vintage, (Originally published in in 1979) $15.95 (Originally published in hardcover in “With lively characters and rich narrative, 1980) this genre-bending book is a wonderful blend “’Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to of speculative and historical fiction that be well?’ So opens Bambara’s vibrant, Afro- takes on the broad issues of power, freedom, centric novel about a group of black activists gender, and race. A woman suddenly goes in the 1970s as they strive to hold onto a back in time to the days of slavery, where she pure vision for liberation even as their group is thrust into plantation life. Viewing her ex- begins to splinter into fractious debates about perience through the lens of our contempo- ideology and method. Bambara was an early rary world, she struggles to understand and radical feminist and black activist whose adapt to her antebellum existence. This book, written nearly 40 years work was brought to the attention of Nobel ago, still resonates today.” – Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore, Prize recipient Toni Morrison when she was an editor at Random Brooklyn, NY House. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the Black Lives Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family & Matter movement -- participant, supporter, or just curious -- should Place, Terry Tempest Williams, Vintage, $16 read this masterpiece.” – Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, St. Louis, (Originally published in hardcover in1992) MO “This is Williams’ memoir about a beloved Stoner, John Williams, New York Review Books, $14.95 (Originally bird habitat by the Great Salt Lake that is published in hardcover in 1965) slowly washing away while her mother is dy- “This story follows William Stoner, who is sent to agricultural col- ing of cancer, the family’s legacy as Down- lege in 1910 to study farming. While at school, he falls in love with winders of atomic-bomb testing in the 1950s. literature and begins a career in academia. His life becomes a series This is a moving narrative that balances grief of missed opportunities and disappointments, and the novel offers against a deep wonder and appreciation both an intimate view of academic life and politics in the first half of the for the natural world and Williams’ family 20th century. Written in clear and simple prose, this is a tender and history.” – Jeanne Costello, Maria’s Bookshop, Durango, CO 19 truthful portrayal of a man with a passion The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: for literature and a yearning for the life of A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and his dreams. While his own life doesn’t quite the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne Fadi- measure up, Stoner touches the lives of many man, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15 (Origi- others and he will touch the heart of the nally published in hardcover in 1998) reader as well.” – Sue Boucher, The Cottage “Fadiman’s story of the tragic misunder- Book Shop, Glen Arbor, MI standings between American medicine and River of Shadows: immigrant Hmong culture after an infant girl Eadweard Muy- is diagnosed with severe epilepsy is a modest bridge and the masterpiece of journalistic empathy. Tire- Technological Wild lessly curious about the people, history, and West, Rebecca Solnit, science connected by Lia’s illness, Fadiman does not lose sight of the Penguin Books, $18 (Originally published in limits of what a journalist can discern or what two cultures can know hardcover in 2004) about each other.” – Tom Nissley, Phinney Books, Seattle, WA “New technologies, political intrigue, and sexual scandal in Northern California: Solnit takes these elements and crafts a tale with HONORARY INKSLINGERS such narrative verve and nuanced political Sue Boucher, The Cottage Book Shop and cultural insight that the reader is swept Jeanne Costello, Maria’s Bookshop away to be a witness to the birth of Northern California as a center of Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore technological innovation. The complexity of the relationship between Chris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books Eadweard Muybridge and Leland Stanford is a fascinating story to which Solnit does justice. More than 10 years after its original pub- Tom Nissley, Phinney Books lication, River of Shadows remains one of my favorite recommenda- Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Booksellers tions.” – Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Booksellers, San Francisco, CA

INKSLINGER’S INKSLINGERS Sue Fleming Anne Holman Anne Stewart Mark Kathy Ashton Hilary Dudley Rachel Haisley Wendy Foster Leigh Margaret Brennan Neville Anne Brillinger Rob Eckman Deon Hilger Paula Longhurst Jan Sloan Betsy Burton Patrick Fleming Barbara Hoagland Kenneth Loosli

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